CODEWITHSUNDEEP
djangodjango-models
dvcolgan
dvcolgan

Reputation: 7728

Access Django model's fields using a string instead of dot syntax?

In Django, I can do this:

test = Test.objects.get(id=1)
test.name

I want to be able to access the properties using dynamically generated strings, like this:

test['name']

or, any other syntax using a string. I tried

test._meta.get_field_by_name('name')

but this returns the field itself and not the value.

Any ideas?

Upvotes: 99

Views: 44913

Answers (4)

arie
arie

Reputation: 18972

Assuming name is an attribute on your instance test getattr(test, 'name') should return the corresponding value. Or test.__dict__['name'].

You can read more about getattr() here: The Python getattr Function

Upvotes: 17

davidhwang
davidhwang

Reputation: 1501

Other answers still stand, but now you can do this using Django's _meta.get_field(). 

test._meta.get_field('name')

Note that the Model _meta API has begun its official support and documentation as of 1.8, but has been distributed and used in prior versions before its official documentation.

Upvotes: 14

Caspar
Caspar

Reputation: 7759

You can use python's built in getattr() function:

getattr(test, 'name')

Upvotes: 144

James R
James R

Reputation: 4656

In Python, you can normally access values within an object that has a dict method.

Let's say you have this class:

class Dog(object):
    def __init___(self, color):
        self.color = color

And then I instantiate it:

dog = Dog('brown')

So i can see the color by doing:

print dog.color

I can also see the color by doing:

print dog.__dict__['color']

I can set the color:

print dog.__dict__['color'] = 'green'

print dog.color

>>>green

Upvotes: 6

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